The End of Improvement – The Managers’ Perspective

[A follow-on to my previous post: The End of Improvement]

For years, organisations have pretended to be on a relentless pursuit of “continuous improvement.” Executives and managers at all levels have been pressured to implement “new initiatives”, “reengineer” processes, and hit ambitious targets—all part of an elaborate act putting improvement at centre stage. But has this endless improvement malarkey actually improved anything?

The uncomfortable truth is that for many managers, these improvement crusades have merely increased their stress, eroded their autonomy, and undermined their professional standing. Rather than enabling organisations to genuinely work smarter, the improvement police have subjected managers to a demoralising regime of resource constraints, changing metrics, and suffocating controls.

Leading Players Forced to Perform

At the top, senior executives have been both star-crossed thespians and unwitting victims of the improvement theatre. On one hand, they are expected to deliver rousing soliloquies as inspirational champions of transformation, rationalising headcount reductions as “rightsizing” and selling disruption as “rejuvenation.” Yet at the same time, they face relentless pressure from analysts and investors to cut costs and boost short-term metrics like earnings per share.

Their status and influence within their organisations has increasingly hinged not on strategic vision or operational expertise, but on delivering an award-worthy performance complete with unsustainable year-over-year budget cuts and headcount reductions. Is it any wonder top leaders become burned out, jaded husks after just a few years treading the boards of the improvement theatre?

The Overloaded Managerial Understudy

Moving down the hierarchy, middle managers have been conscripted as overloaded understudies to the improvement theatre. Caught between lofty edicts and challenging targets from the leading players above, and implementation pressures from the ensemble below, this critical but underappreciated class has been tasked with doing more-and-more with less-and-less.

From lean six sigma programmes to ERP system rollouts, managers have been bombarded with new tools, KPIs and time-consuming compliance rituals—all while their discretionary budgets and spans of control wither. Their expertise and commitment are repeatedly second-guessed through recurring rounds of process “optimisation” between each act of the improvement theatre.

Is it any surprise that managers increasingly suffer burnout, demotivated by the cognitive dissonance of being improvement enforcers one day, only to find themselves targets of the latest performance drive the next? With each new production, their authority and influence diminish further as indispensable institutional knowledge is upstaged by the latest bestseller, ibusiness class n-flight magazine, consultant’s script or other fad.

The Final Performance

Enough is enough. The idea that organisations can infinitely cut, reduce and optimise their way to success through improvement theatre has been definitively debunked by decades of ineffective and morale-sapping performances. Rather than doubling down with yet another encore, we need to rediscover fundamentals that have been tragically ignored.

Perhaps it’s finally time to rehumanise the workplace by recognising the intrinsic motivation, expertise and institutional memories that managers bring to the table. By realigning the way the work works based on pragmatism and mutual respect rather than dogmatically pursuing an arbitrary definition of “better,” we can foster genuine and sustainable progress over the long run.

After all, if an “improvement” worsens the wellbeing and standing of those charged with implementing it, can it really be considered improvement at all? And are we fools to expect these turkeys to vote for their Christmas? Organisations might choose to pause, escape the pressures, recriminations, frustrations and despair, and simply strive to optimise for the needs of all the Folks That Matter™  – including the managers – before mindlessly leaping into the next faddish improvement drama.